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Saturday, October 15, 2016

Book Review: Frostbitten by Heather Beck

Great beauty hides dark secrets...

Seventeen-year-old
Anastasia Lockhart has never led an easy life, but when she starts
getting into serious trouble, she’s sent to live with her grandparents
in Cedar Falls. The small, picturesque town hasn’t changed since she
visited four years ago, with one exception – the presence of a handsome,
mysterious boy named Frost. Despite warnings from her grandparents and
friends to stay away from Frost, Anastasia can’t deny their attraction,
and the more time they spend together, the deeper in love they fall.
Unfortunately, Frost has a secret that is beyond Anastasia’s wildest
imagination, and she soon finds herself in the midst of a supernatural
legend that has haunted Cedar Falls for years.

Can Anastasia and Frost’s love really overcome anything, or are their fates much darker?

I haven't read a paranormal book like this since my Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse bender years ago. That being said ... there were similarities that were a little difficult to ignore.

Before I get to that, I do want to say that I enjoyed this book. I thought that while the characters didn't ring any bells for me, the plot was interesting and I enjoyed where the book went and how it got there. The story was fast moving and it mostly kept me entertained the entire time that I read it.

That being said, I didn't connect with these characters at all. Our heroine in this one, Anastasia, is seventeen years old. Anastasia didn't behave like a seventeen year old. Not in the least. I want to tell you about a few examples because they just really rubbed me the wrong way and didn't seem true to the age group Anastasia is in. There was one time she was talking about this chick working in the office at school who "hadn't been well-trained, if at all". What? Come on. A 17 year old isn't going to think that. Comment on her hair? Sure. Her outfit? Absolutely. Maybe even the rude way in which this chick was talking. I'll even take that. But commenting on her training (or lack thereof) was just weird. There was this other situation with a teacher ... Anastasia was saying how this young teacher was more interested in a paycheck and disregarding safety in her class. Again, it felt weird. Then she was talking about how she doesn't "put a label on relationships". Ugh. She's seventeen. The last one I'll bring up is how she thought that other kids in her class were "dehumanizing" the male lead, Frost. Dehumanizing? I think that all of this would have been fine if there was a reason behind Anastasia acting older than her age or at least some kind of acknowledgement of this kind of behavior from a teenager. I didn't find any of that within these pages. I didn't see any reason why Anastasia would be acting like a grumpy 30-something all the time.

And here we are at the Twilight reference I mentioned earlier. Let's just say that before I sat down to write this review, I actually checked what other people thought about this book. I never do that but I wanted to see if I was just completely off base with seeing similarities between these two and unfortunately, I wasn't alone and I wasn't off base. It wasn't a word for word type thing, obviously, but there were just scenes where it was VERY close to Twilight. I think that the most obvious scene was when Anastasia learned the truth about Frost. Anastasia put it together on her own by listing off the qualities that Frost has and then being a-okay with this and just scampering along behind him like she was riding a unicorn off into the sunset. She didn't have any qualms about being around him and it (again) didn't feel like a 17 year old or in any way how anyone would respond to this kind of thing. Not that this has ever happened but I'm pretty sure that 99% of the population would have at least paused for a moment to think about what being a werewolf meant.

For me, the characters make or break the story. The story could be great but if the characters just aren't cutting it, it can really ruin the entire experience for me. It was an okay book.
Like I said, it kept me entertained until the last page. I just wish
that Anastasia had been more believable so that I could have connected
with her in some way.